revisiting_the_role_of_language_in_spatial_cognition_categorical_perception_of_spatial_relations_in_english_and_korean_speakers.psychon_bull_re_Image_Marked文档.pdf

Psychon Bull Rev DOI 10.3758/s13423-017-1268-x BRIEF REPORT Revisiting the role of language in spatial cognition: Categorical perception of spatial relations in English and Korean speakers Kevin J. Holmes 1 Kelsey Moty2 Terry Regier3 # Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2017 Abstract The spatial relation of support has been regarded as Keywords Spatial cognition . Categorical perception . universally privileged in nonlinguistic cognition and immune to Language and thought . Lateralization . Bilinguals the influence of language. English, but not Korean, obligatorily distinguishes support from nonsupport via basic spatial terms. Despite this linguistic difference, previous research suggests that Languages differ in how they partition the world through their English and Korean speakers show comparable nonlinguistic words and grammatical devices (Malt Majid, 2013). Such sensitivity to the support/nonsupport distinction. Here, using a linguistic differences suggest the possibility of corresponding paradigm previously found to elicit cross-language differences in differences in nonlinguistic cognition, consistent with the clas- color discrimination, we provide evidence for a difference in sic hypothesis that language shapes thought (Whorf, 1956). sensitivity to support/nonsupport between native English Support for this possibility comes from studies showing that speakers and native Korean speakers who were late English speakers of different languages perform differently—in a learners and tested in a context that privileged Korean. manner predicted by the semantic differences among the lan- Whereas the former group showed categorical perception (CP) guages—on tasks that do not require language (see Wolff when discriminating spatial scenes capturing the support/ Holmes, 2011). Other research suggests, however,